The Sexual Harassment Advice, Response, and Prevention for Workplaces Legal Advice Clinic (SHARP Workplaces Legal Clinic), operated by the Community Legal Assistance Society (CLAS), has been honored to provide free legal advice to anyone who has experienced workplace sexual harassment in British Columbia. Since 2020, our lawyers have advised clients on legal options for their workplace sexual harassment situation. We also delivered presentations about our services and workplace sexual harassment across BC and engaged in legal advocacy to help end the misuse of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). Unfortunately, our funding has not been renewed and we will close our clinic at the end of March 2024.

We would like to take this opportunity to reflect on our work and thank our clients, lawyers, partners, and funder for all we have achieved.

Background

CLAS operated the SHARP Workplaces program together with Ending Violence Association of BC (EVA BC). The SHARP Workplaces program has two components: the Legal Clinic operated by CLAS, and a public education component led by EVA BC. With funding from Department of Justice Canada, CLAS established SHARP Workplaces Legal Clinic to provide legal advice to anyone who experienced workplace sexual harassment. CLAS partnered with EVA BC to develop and deliver public legal education information and training (PLEI) for employers and workers, available on the SHARP Workplaces website.

SHARP Workplaces Legal Clinic launched in March 2020 only days before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Like everybody else around the globe, SHARP Workplaces Legal Clinic had to adapt to the changing landscape and deliver legal advice services virtually by phone or online by staff lawyers and a roster of lawyers throughout BC.

All SHARP Workplaces Legal Clinic lawyers and staff received training in trauma-informed approaches and substantive areas of law. We are proud of our training program and thankful to the legal professionals and other experts who shared their wealth of knowledge as presenters, and to Courthouse Libraries BC for partnering to deliver our training sessions to make them widely available beyond our roster lawyers. The clinic also provided resources and continuing training to support lawyers in their work our clients. Our lawyers took a holistic and trauma-informed approach, recognizing that clients are more than their legal problems.

Clinic lawyers have been honored to help clients:

  • with advice on how to address sexual harassment in the workplace;
  • understand what legal options they may have;
  • review and draft documents;
  • understand legal processes; and
  • coach through negotiations or a complaint or legal process.

Our clinic’s goal has always been to support clients to do what is best for them even if they chose not to pursue a legal option.

Clinic staff have completed many outreach and promotional activities. We regularly engaged in presentations about our services, social media posts, blogs, and commentary for media articles on workplace sexual harassment. All this with the goal to improve understanding of workplace sexual harassment and increase awareness of our service. Since September 2022, we’ve also engaged in a campaign to stop the misuse of NDAs – to recognize the harm and continued trauma that is caused when a complainant is not able to talk about what happened to them even to friends or support people because they signed an NDA as part of their settlement.

Clinic Highlights

Clinic Feedback: As a legal advice clinic, we are delighted to report positive client feedback taken from our end of services survey. Of the clients who completed the client survey:

94.4% indicated that they felt they better understood their options and

83.8% indicated they felt better prepared to resolve their issue.

It’s heartwarming to know clients found our services to be valuable and that a majority felt they came away with a better understanding of their options and were more prepared to resolve their issue. Clients were supported to pursue a legal option, such as filing a human rights complaint, or assisted in making a compensation claim to WorkSafeBC. In some cases, lawyers were able to assist clients to resolve their issue within our limited-service hours. Some clients settled their complaints and received financial compensation for the sexual harassment, and for lost wages. In other cases, clients were successful in pushing for policy changes and ensured they were provided with a reference to assist them in their job search. Beyond settlements, time and again we heard our clients’ relief to be believed and to know that what happened to them was not okay. By working with their lawyer, many clients felt more able to address their situation, taking back control over their lives that the perpetrator of sexual harassment had taken from them.

When asked about the most significant impact of their involvement with SHARP Workplaces Legal Clinic, clients had the following things to say:

“Having someone to understand, even when I can’t afford it.”

“It was a very delicate and sensitive matter. I was hesitant to seek legal action due to shame. I almost immediately felt heard and assisted.”

“I was listened to. I was helped, I was spoken to as a person. I was able to get counselling and be able to move forward with this reasonably with the knowledge I was given.”

It means a lot to our clinic to hear that our services have made a positive difference in the lives of our clients. Our lawyers and staff have continually been inspired by our clients who are working to be heard and make their workplaces safe and sexual harassment-free. Thank you to our clients and to everyone who reached out to our clinic. It has been a privilege to have served you and to have been a part of your journey.

Outreach: An important part of our work was to do outreach on our services and workplace sexual harassment both online and in-person across BC. Our team delivered over 60 outreach presentations with more than 2,681 participants. The COVID pandemic put a halt to in-person outreach, but we were eventually able to make outreach trips to Kamloops in 2022, and to Vancouver Island in 2023. We are thankful to have connected with so many diverse front-line organizations and institutions supporting workers across BC.

We also want to recognize all the organizations in our referral network. One of the objectives of our outreach was to develop connections with organizations that we could refer clients to for other forms of support that are vital in taking a holistic approach to assisting our clients. We thank you for your partnership and recognize the great work that you do.

NDA Campaign: SHARP Workplaces Legal Clinic, in partnership with Can’t Buy My Silence (CBMS), worked to raise awareness about the harm caused by the misuse of NDAs and encouraged discussion about restricting the use of NDAs. We have delivered presentations to raise awareness with the public and for lawyers to recognize the harm and what we can do differently in practice. CLAS continues to advocate for changing the laws to prevent the harms causes by NDAs in sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, discrimination, and harassment situations.

Stand Informed: Building on our experience from SHARP Workplaces, CLAS launched a brief advice service for sexual assault in October 2023 with Department of Justice funding through an agreement with the BC Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, Community Safety and Crime Prevention Branch. Stand Informed provides up to 3 hours of free legal advice to anyone who has experienced sexual assault in BC. Although SHARP Workplaces Legal Clinic is closing, we are pleased this much needed legal advice service is starting.

Thank you

SHARP Workplaces Legal Clinic would like to thank all our supporters and partners for helping to facilitate our work. We thank the Department of Justice Canada for funding our program and allowing us to provide our services free of charge to the BC public. Thanks especially to the lawyers for your dedication in assisting our clients, often beyond approved hours of service. Thanks also to those who assisted with training and PLEI work. Finally, thank you to the numerous organizations that we networked and partnered with to provide assistance and supports to people of BC facing sexual harassment. While we are closing, we know you will continue the good work!

The SHARP Workplaces Team